Police departments in Colorado are largely complying with a 2006 law that requires them to report suspected illegal immigrants that they have arrested, according to a state audit released Monday.

However, the audit said, the law still will not prevent future incidents similar to the one in Aurora last year in which a vehicle driven by an illegal immigrant was involved in an accident that killed three people.

“We concluded that the implementation of (the 2006 law) alone is unlikely to either prevent fatal traffic accidents allegedly caused by illegal immigrants or increase the number of detained or removed illegal immigrants,” auditors wrote.

The problem is that local police agencies do not have the resources to enforce immigration laws, and illegal immigration is the purview of the federal government in any case, auditors wrote. Meanwhile, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency frequently does not pick up suspected illegal immigrants who have been arrested for only minor crimes, the report said.

Lawmakers asked state auditors to examine whether local police were complying with the 2006 law after the accident last year in which a vehicle driven by Francis Hernandez struck a pickup in Aurora, killing two women in the truck as well as a 3-year-old boy who was in an ice-cream shop hit by the truck.

Hernandez, a native of Guatemala, had been arrested many times, and there were dozens of warrants for his arrest for failing to appear in court. He also had never possessed a driver’s license.

The audit said local police reports to ICE of suspected illegal immigrants had increased by nearly 69 percent since the 2006 law took effect. However, auditors noted, they could not adequately judge whether increased deportations resulted because ICE did not respond to requests for information.

The owners of Boulder’s Sterling University Peaks apartments, who this summer were cited for illegally subdividing 92 bedrooms in the complex, have reached an agreement to settle the case for $410,000, the city announced Thursday.